Democratic Congressman Jim Moran (D-VA) says those opposing terror trials in New York City for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other 9/11 plotters are unamerican:

"[Republicans] see this as an opportunity to demagogue," he said. "They will seize on any opportunity to do that, and that means they'll even take a stand that's un-American."

"It's un-American to hold anyone indefinitely without trial," Moran added. "It's against our principles as a nation."

The feeble-minded Moran is demagoguing the issue even as he accuses others of the same thing. The "unamerican" opposition wants the 9/11 plotters tried, they just want them tried by military tribunals, instead of putting on media circus show trials in the Big Apple.

A CNN poll showed that 64% of Americans want KSM and friends tried by military tribunals. Who knew there were so many unamerican Americans ?

Among the unamerican Americans…..

The family of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was beheaded by KSM:

"We are sorry to learn of the Justice Department decision to try KSM in a NYC Federal Court.

We are respectful of the legal process, but believe that giving confessed terrorists a worldwide platform to publicize their ideology sends the wrong message to potential terrorists, inviting them in essence, to resort to violence and cruelty in order to gain publicity.

We believe that justice is better served if the trial of KSM, the confessed murderer of Daniel Pearl, be held in closed session."

Another unamerican American is the Democratic Governor of New York, David Paterson, who told the Daily News:

"This is not a decision that I would have made…Our country was attacked on its own soil on Sept. 11, 2001, and New York was very much the epicenter of that attack. Over 2,700 lives were lost. It's very painful; we're still having trouble getting over it. We still haven't been able to rebuild that site, and having those terrorists tried so close to the attack is going to be an encumbrance on all of New Yorkers."

In my last post on this subject, I wrote about the hundreds of family members of 9/11 victims who oppose holding the trials in NYC…what a bunch of lousy unamerican sob's they are.

To make all us unamericans feel even better, ACLU attorneys are saying it's probable that KSM and company will serve as their own attorneys during the trial. Fan-freaking-tastic !

"The chances are excellent that he [KSM] represents himself," said Ron Kuby, a defense lawyer known for taking on controversial clients.

"[KSM's] goal in the legal system is not to beat the rap. His goal is to use the legal system as a forum for his own ideas and to embrace martyrdom through that system."

"It's quite possible that these defendants will undertake to represent themselves," Ben Wizner said. "They've been trying to fire their lawyers the whole time so they can be executed."

Nothing like giving KSM his own personal soapbox, so he can serve as an inspiration to terrorists everywhere.

Noted defense lawyer Alan Dershowitz chimes in with some KSM defense strategy:

Lawyers could seize on the time it's taken to prosecute the accused terrorists, arguing that they were denied their constitutional rights to a speedy trial.

A crafty defense lawyer might also employ a tactic called "graymailing," demanding reams of classified information in the hope that prosecutors refuse to release them. That provides an opening for a lawyer to request the indictment be dismissed.

Torture is also likely to play a central role in the case.

That Mohammed was waterboarded more than 180 times by CIA investigators is no secret.

"The first thing they're going to do is challenge all of the evidence and say all of it is the fruit of waterboarding," Dershowitz said.

Some intrepid reporter somewhere has to ask Attorney General Eric Holder or President Obama if they plan to release KSM if he is acquitted. I'd love to hear the answer to that question.

Returning to Congressman Moran's statement about it being unamerican to hold detainees indefinitely without any type of trial, I'm wondering, which people are recommending such a thing ???

Well, there's THIS guy:

President Barack Obama has quietly decided to bypass Congress and allow the indefinite detention of terrorist suspects without charges…Such a decision allows the president to unilaterally hold "combatants" without habeas corpus — a legal term literally meaning "you shall have the body" — which forces prosecutors to charge a suspect with a crime to justify the suspect's detention. Obama's decision was buried on page A 23 of The New York Times' New York edition on Thursday…"The administration will continue to hold the detainees without bringing them to trial based on the power it says it has under the Congressional resolution passed after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, authorizing the president to use force against forces of Al Qaeda and the Taliban," the Times' Peter Baker writes. "In concluding that it does not need specific permission from Congress to hold detainees without charges, the Obama administration is adopting one of the arguments advanced by the Bush administration in years of debates about detention policies."

Looks like Congressman Moran, in his overzealous haste to attack Republicans, has inadvertently called his pal Obama unamerican. Oops.

When I found out that the Associated Press had eleven reporters furiously fact-checking Sarah Palin's new book, illustrating that Palin Derangement Syndrome has not yet subsided (and did you hear the over-the-top Palin attacks by MSNBC and CNN last night ?), I thought maybe we should examine some statements made by a more important person, namely (in Michael Buffer's boxing announcer voice)….the Leader Of The Free World, the Teleprompter In Chief, the Apologist To The World, the Fence-Sittter General, The Preeeeeeee-sident Of The United Staaates…Barack Husseeeeeeeeeeeeein Obama !

Let's look at some of his statements, since the press rarely does.

Obama: "I can make a firm pledge, under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes."

King: Except for your cigarette taxes, health care fines, health care reform taxes, cap-and-trade taxes, etc, etc.
—
Obama: "I don't take a dime of their [lobbyist] money, and when I am president, they won't find a job in my White House."

King: Whatever, Barry. You had lobbyists on your campaign, your transition team, and you have them in your White House. (link)
—
Obama: "I found this national debt, doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office."

King: Yes, and now you're doubling it again, so shut up.
—
Obama: "I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."

King: I'll let Obama rebut himself on this one (he rebuts himself a LOT).

Obama: "No one is pro-abortion."

King: You are, Mr. President. You didn't even vote against partial birth abortions.
—
Obama: "It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

King: Keep your bigoted sentiments to yourself, sir.
—
Obama: "John Kerry believes in an America where hard work is rewarded."

King: I guess so, if you consider it "hard work" to make your name by trashing your own troops in Vietnam and then marrying two different rich heiresses, as John Kerry did.
—
Obama: "My administration is the only thing between you [CEO's] and the pitchforks."

King: Um, was that a threat ? Stay classy, President Thug.
—
Obama: "Over the last 15 months, we've traveled to every corner of the United States. I've now been in 57 states? I think one left to go."

King: I wonder what would have happened had Sarah Palin made this statement ??? Can you say 'media feeding frenzy' ? But with Obama, it's more like media blackout.
—
Obama: "People of Berlin – people of the world – this is our moment. This is our time."

King: Diagnosis – narcissist. Delusions of grandeur. Pretty creepy.
—
Obama: "The thing about hip-hop today is it's smart, it's insightful. The way they can communicate a complex message in a very short space is remarkable."

King: And all that misogynistic 'b*tches,' 'ho's,' 'back that a** up,' and "n-word' stuff is very insightful as well.
—
Obama: "There's not a liberal America and a conservative America – there's the United States of America."

King: Then why do you spend so much time excluding and trashing conservative America ?
—
Obama: "We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times… and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK. That's not leadership. That's not going to happen."

King: Dictators R' Us. Other countries are supposed to tell us what we can drive, eat, and how we can heat our homes ? Nope. Don't think so. I'm not going to check with Belgium and Japan before I have a cheeseburger.
—
Obama: "We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."

King: Yeah, and we can have them wear, oh, I don't know, how about Brownshirts!!! With all due respect, screw you, Mr. President. Dictators R' Us, Part Two.
—
Obama: "We need earmark reform, and when I'm President, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely."

King: LOL. Most of your stimulus spending was nothing but earmarks. You've set a new record for earmarks, even though you called them something else. Dishonesty on steroids.
—
Obama: "I'm proud of the fact that I stood up early and unequivocally in opposition to Bush's foreign policy (and was the only U.S. Senate candidate in Illinois to do so). That opposition hasn't changed."

King: Then why are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan still going on ?
—
Obama: "I reject that notion [that forcing people to purchase health insurance or fining them is a tax increase]. Telling people to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase."

King: Do the fines come out of people's pockets and flow to the government coffers ? Yes, they do. That's a tax increase, President Pinocchio, no matter what you want to call it in Spinville.
—
Obama: [debating Hillary] "Senator Clinton has a different approach. She believes that we have to force people who don’t have health insurance to buy it."

King: And so do you. At least Hillary was honest about it. How do you get that Pinocchio nose through the door, Mr. President ?
—
Obama: "Now, many of these plans will cost money, which is why I’ve laid out how I’ll pay for every dime – by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens that don’t help America grow."

King: What a comedian. This one didn't pass the laugh test to begin with, and Obama has abandoned the idea.
—
Obama: “And insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care … That makes sense, it saves money, and it saves lives.”

King: It makes sense and might save lives, but study after study indicates that preventive care will increase medical costs, not decrease them. It really only requires simple logic to make the determination. More care means more costs, and the overwhelming majority of preventive medicine DOESN'T uncover some dire illness. The overwhelming majority of people are healthy.
—
Obama: "And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up – under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.”

King: I already dealt with this one in a recent post, but until the Stupak Amendment, it was obvious that federal funds, in the form of insurance subsidies, would have funded abortions under ObamaCare.
—
Obama: "They [I assume he means honest people] argue that these private companies can’t fairly compete with the government. And they’d be right if taxpayers were subsidizing this public insurance option. But they won’t be. I have insisted that like any private insurance company, the public insurance option would have to be self-sufficient and rely on the premiums it collects.”

King: Same phony argument by Obama as with abortion. Because the public option insurance would be subsidized by the taxpayers for low income persons, just as private insurance would be, Obama actually refuted his own point here. The taxpayers would be subsidizing the public option.
—
Obama: "“Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this [health care reform] plan.”

King: Now, that is some funny stuff. What's the name of that Michael McDonald song ???? Oh yeah, What A Fool Believes. Maybe Obama should get a side gig at the Laugh Factory. Nothing less than the entire history of our federal government tells us this can't possibly be true.
—
Obama: "I want to campaign the same way I govern, which is to respond directly and forcefully with the truth."

King: Ta da ! Hi-larious. You're killing me, Barry. Can you do any Jack Nicholson impressions ?
—
I can go on with these examples all day, but this post is running long, so I'll give President Pinocchio a break and stop embarassing him with the facts (for now).

One final quote, however.
—
Obama: "If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists – to protect them and to promote their common welfare – all else is lost."

King: Well then, it looks like all is lost, because I sure don't trust someone like Obama who lies to me all the time.
—

“After eight years of delay, those allegedly responsible for the attacks of September the 11th will finally face justice. They will be brought to New York—New York — to answer for their alleged crimes in a courthouse just blocks from where the twin towers once stood.” – Attorney General Eric Holder.

Eric Holder is mistaken. Those terrorists coming to New York for trial were brought to justice years ago. They aren't on vacation down there in Guantanamo Bay. They are prisoners of a war Al Qaeda declared against the United States in 1996. Self-confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was captured in 2003. All five of the terrorists coming to New York for trial were already set to be tried before military commissions at Guantanamo Bay. What Holder has done is to grant foreign warriors the full rights of American citizenship by putting them into our civilian court system. Holder is seeking the death penalty, but KSM also faced the death penalty under the military commissions system.

What is to be gained from this ?

It isn't to console the families of 9/11 victims. Hundreds of them are already protesting this decision:

“Families are furious about this,” said Debra Burlingame, whose brother Chic Burlingame was the American Airlines pilot of one of the planes hijacked on Sept. 11. She said more than 300 family members have implored the administration not to move the trial to New York. “They know we don’t support this. We support military commissions but they are going to see a wave of fury, and I don’t think they’re prepared for it,” she said Friday after the decision became public.

Bringing the terrorists to New York and trying them only blocks away from the World Trade Center site will guarantee one thing – a media circus, perhaps unlike any we have yet seen. Won't it be fun to watch the terrorists exercise their new array of civil rights ? I know I can't wait for KSM's attorneys to say he should be freed because we didn't read him his Miranda rights. I also can't wait for his lawyers to ask for the evidence against him to be thrown out due to the enhanced interrogation techniques, aka torture. I can't wait for KSM to become the victim. I definitely look forward to KSM taking the stand to urge his followers to continue their jihad against the Great Satan, and having the media instantly spread his message across the globe. And what will happen when KSM's attorneys request access to classified intelligence materials as part of his defense ? There's a reason crimes and wars are treated differently, even if Eric Holder and Barack Obama don't know there is a difference.

Last week, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) tried to pass legislation that would have forced the administration to try 9/11 plotters in military courts. Democrats voted that legislation down by a vote of 54-45. We've spent years insuring that the military commissions pass Constitutional muster, and Obama has said he will try terrorism cases with military commissions, but then he brings the highest profile cases possible into federal court. Why ?

It's not that I think we can't try terrorists in federal court. We've done that before successfully lots of times, and in KSM's case we should be able to prevail, though how we'll get an impartial jury blocks away from the WTC site should be a circus all it's own. It's just that WE DIDN'T HAVE TO DO THIS. We could have avoided the circus.

UPDATE**

Here's President Obama from earlier this year:

"When this process is complete, there may be a number of people who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes, in some cases because evidence may be tainted, but who nonetheless pose a threat to the security of the United States. Examples of that threat include people who’ve received extensive explosives training at al Qaeda training camps, or commanded Taliban troops in battle, or expressed their allegiance to Osama bin Laden, or otherwise made it clear that they want to kill Americans. These are people who, in effect, remain at war with the United States. Let me repeat: I am not going to release individuals who endanger the American people. Al Qaeda terrorists and their affiliates are at war with the United States, and those that we capture — like other prisoners of war — must be prevented from attacking us again."

Obama admits KSM and company are prisoners of war who will not be released. Sooooo, why bring them into civilian court ? You know darn well that KSM will NEVER be released. That would be political suicide for Obama and the Democrats. This decision makes no sense to me.

"Under our [health care reform] plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions." – President Obama, addressing a joint session of Congress on September 9, 2009. (link)

Obama spent most of this year repeating the above words, and he characterized anybody who said otherwise, namely Republicans, as divisive peddlers of "outrageous myths."

But, in what has become an all too familiar game of misdirection, the peddler of myths was Obama himself. The Stupak Amendment proved the dishonesty of Obama's previous words. Prior to that amendment to the House health care bill, health care subsidies (federal funds) would have been used to fund private health care plans that cover abortions. With the adoption of the Stupak Amendment, no federal funds would be used to fund abortions in any health care plan. The Stupak Amendment was adopted because that was the only way the Democrats could pass the health care bill in the House of Representatives. Without it, they were 10 votes short.

Once abortions were REALLY not covered under ObamaCare (as opposed to Obama and other Democrats only pretending they weren't covered), the debate moved to the Senate, and a firestorm erupted in the Democratic party between the pro-choice liberal wing and the pro-life moderate/conservative wing. The pro-choicers argue that the Stupak Amendment is a sea change on abortion rights, restricting federal funds that were available under the previous Hyde Amendment. And the pro-choicers seem to be right. It is a sea change. The Hyde Amendment forbids use of federal taxpayer dollars to fund Medicaid abortions except in cases of rape, incest or threat to the mother’s life, but it also allows states to use their own Medicaid money (90% of which comes from federal funds) to fund other abortions, which about 17 states currently do. The Stupak Amendment negates that federal funding, as I understand it. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

The Dems find themselves between a rock and a hard place. If the pro-life wing prevails, about 40 Democrats say they won't support the health care plan. If the pro-choice wing prevails, they lose support from the pro-lifers. In either case, the Democratic filibuster-proof majority evaporates, and with almost all Republicans against ObamaCare, the current health care reform bills could die over the abortion issue split.

In light of this dilemma, Obama seems to support the pro-choice position, even though he's making split-the-baby (no unfortunate pun intended) comments on the issue. Here's Obama saying, um, something, to ABC's Jake Tapper today:

You know, I laid out a very simple principle, which is this is a health care bill, not an abortion bill. And we're not looking to change what is the principle that has been in place for a very long time, which is federal dollars are not used to subsidize abortions.

And I want to make sure that the provision that emerges meets that test — that we are not in some way sneaking in funding for abortions, but, on the other hand, that we're not restricting women's insurance choices, because one of the pledges I made in that same speech was to say that if you're happy and satisfied with the insurance that you have, that it's not going to change.

There. Hope that clears things up. According to Obama, we're not going to have federal funding for abortions. Except when we do. I think. Or not.

Once upon a time, when I was nineteen years old, I read J.R. Tolkien's 1100-page Lord Of The Rings trilogy in about a week. I only accomplished that because I was in the hospital in traction at the time, and didn't have anything else to do. It was either hobbits or soap operas. I was thankful for the hobbits.

But what if, instead of Lord Of The Rings, I had undertaken to read the 1990-page House health care reform bill, filled with the wonders of it's arcane legalese ? Would I have been able to read and comprehend all the ramifications of that in one short week ? Very doubtful, but that's what Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi expects her congressional representatives to do. Pelosi wants a vote on the health care reform bill on saturday, eight days after it was written. Could it be that Pelosi and company want a quick vote because they desire to pass the bill before people really figure out what's in it ? That has been the modus operandi of the liberal Democrat wing all year regarding health care reform. Remember that President Obama wanted a bill passed by july, but the bluedog Democrats and Republicans stopped that mistake from happening. Ironically, the longer congressional Democrats work on health care reform bills, the bigger and more convoluted they get (it ain't easy to cater to so many special interests at once). The House health care bill is now over a trillion dollars, above Obama's low, low bargain cost ceiling of $900 billion, not that it matters. We shouldn't believe anything Obama says about health care anyway. You know he'll sign anything called health care reform that gets to his desk, no matter how bad it is, just so he can claim victory.

Hey, here's an idea. Let's have Nancy Pelosi give a couple hour long press conference about the House health care reform bill on saturday, so Americans can find out exactly what the Democrats are trying to pass (assuming Nancy even knows) ? 'We The People' and all that. That would be quite helpful, and very transparent of the Dems, seeing as how they never quite got around to having the health care negotiations on CSPAN, as candidate Obama falsely promised. Obama also falsely claimed he wouldn't force people to buy health care insurance, but that's pretty much the centerpiece of ObamaCare now. Our dishonest prez has even taken to telling such outrageous and obvious lies about health care reform that it takes an entire liberal media not to notice them. Here's one from yesterday, per the Washington Times:

The president said that AARP, the nation's largest seniors organization, has signed on to the House bill because it knows that the legislation will "strengthen Medicare, not jeopardize it. They know it will protect the benefits our seniors receive, not cut them," Mr. Obama said.

Um, the House health care bill cuts $472.8 billion from Medicare, Mr. President. That's a real whopper you just told. What's next ? Will you tell us that round thing in the sky at night isn't the moon, it's actually the Obama logo ? I'm sure only the "naysayers" who are responsible for "the failed policies of the past" would disagree with you, like those Fox "non" News people with their "viewpoints." (Side question – have you ever met a person who didn't have a viewpoint, outside of the comatose ?)

In the President's defense, he probably hasn't read the House health care bill either, so maybe he doesn't know about the cuts, or maybe he puts his hands over his ears and yells "na, na, na, na" when his staff members try to inform him. Obama leaves the petty details to others. He's just there for the big picture stuff. He's busy fundamentally transforming America (into a shell of it's former self). Obama makes the grand proclamations, like "reform health care," or "close Guantanamo Bay," or "limit carbon emissions." He can't be bothered to figure out how to do any of those things. After all, Obama has never run a country, state, county, city, or township before. He's never run a business, never managed employees. He doesn't have any expertise in health care, military, economic, or environmental matters. He never even accomplished much of anything in hist short Senate career, or even during his years in the Illinois state legislature. He was one of those guys who votes "present," so as not to be pinned down to a position. Obama is the entry-level president who charmed the media in 2008 with the sound of his voice, his sappy inspirational rhetoric, and his historic nature. That, and the fact he is a liberal Democrat. The media LOVES that, even though America really doesn't. That's why Obama hid behind all that tripe about post-partisanship. Obama is as far from post-partisan as can be. He's hyper-partisan. He can barely speak without denigrating his opposition and blaming everything on them. He's also utterly without shame, and, as I've outlined quite a bit on this blog, will tell any lie at any time, with absolute conviction. On the rare occasions when a journalist actually gets to ask him about one of his falsehoods (like Stephanopolous did when asking if the health care mandate was a tax), Obama flashes that winning smile and then acts like the journalist just crapped in his own pants by asking such a silly question, one that only the "tired opposition" or "entrenched special interests" would ask. Obama is dishonest and then acts like we're idiots for pointing out that he's being dishonest. Sorry, Mr. O, but you ain't that slick, even if you and your adoring media have fooled many into believing you are.

Uh, what was I talking about ? Oh yeah, health care reform. Sorry I roamed a bit off topic there. It's just that I'm getting tired of all the deceptions coming from the White House, as the Democrats try to pass bigger and better boondoggles off on the rest of us.

There's an old political truism that says you don't raise taxes during a recession. The reason is, raising taxes during a recession tends to make the recession worse. They used to call that – economics.

But that was before the Age Of Obama and Pelosi, where economic rules no longer apply. Obama and Pelosi just love to raise them some taxes, recession or not. It's full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes with those two. The enormous 1990-page House health care bill is no exception. Following are the taxes contained in that bill, courtesy of Americans For Tax Reform:

Employer Mandate Excise Tax (Page 275): If an employer does not pay 72.5 percent of a single employee’s health premium (65 percent of a family employee), the employer must pay an excise tax equal to 8 percent of average wages. Small employers (measured by payroll size) have smaller payroll tax rates of 0 percent (<$500,000), 2 percent ($500,000-$585,000), 4 percent ($585,000-$670,000), and 6 percent ($670,000-$750,000).

Individual Mandate Surtax (Page 296): If an individual fails to obtain qualifying coverage, he must pay an income surtax equal to the lesser of 2.5 percent of modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) or the average premium. MAGI adds back in the foreign earned income exclusion and municipal bond interest.

Medicine Cabinet Tax (Page 324): Non-prescription medications would no longer be able to be purchased from health savings accounts (HSAs), flexible spending accounts (FSAs), or health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs). Insulin excepted.

Cap on FSAs (Page 325): FSAs [Flexible Spending Accounts] would face an annual cap of $2500 (currently uncapped).

Increased Additional Tax on Non-Qualified HSA [Health Savings Accounts] Distributions (Page 326): Non-qualified distributions from HSAs would face an additional tax of 20 percent (current law is 10 percent). This disadvantages HSAs relative to other tax-free accounts (e.g. IRAs, 401(k)s, 529 plans, etc.)

Denial of Tax Deduction for Employer Health Plans Coordinating with Medicare Part D (Page 327): This would further erode private sector participation in delivery of Medicare services.

Surtax on Individuals and Small Businesses (Page 336): Imposes an income surtax of 5.4 percent on MAGI over $500,000 ($1 million married filing jointly). MAGI adds back in the itemized deduction for margin loan interest. This would raise the top marginal tax rate in 2011 from 39.6 percent under current law to 45 percent—a new effective top rate.

Excise Tax on Medical Devices (Page 339): Imposes a new excise tax on medical device manufacturers equal to 2.5 percent of the wholesale price. It excludes retail sales and unspecified medical devices sold to the general public.

Corporate 1099-MISC Information Reporting (Page 344): Requires that 1099-MISC forms be issued to corporations as well as persons for trade or business payments. Current law limits to just persons for small business compliance complexity reasons. Also expands reporting to exchanges of property.

Delay in Worldwide Allocation of Interest (Page 345): Delays for nine years the worldwide allocation of interest, a corporate tax relief provision from the American Jobs Creation Act

Limitation on Tax Treaty Benefits for Certain Payments (Page 346): Increases taxes on U.S. employers with overseas operations looking to avoid double taxation of earnings.

Codification of the “Economic Substance Doctrine” (Page 349): Empowers the IRS to disallow a perfectly legal tax deduction or other tax relief merely because the IRS deems that the motive of the taxpayer was not primarily business-related.

Application of “More Likely Than Not” Rule (Page 357): Publicly-traded partnerships and corporations with annual gross receipts in excess of $100 million have raised standards on penalties. If there is a tax underpayment by these taxpayers, they must be able to prove that the estimated tax paid would have more likely than not been sufficient to cover final tax liability.

That's thirteen new taxes in all, which are supposed to generate $540 billion in new revenue over 10 years to pay for health care reform (though it seems little is actually being reformed with this health care "reform." Mostly, we're just creating a big new welfare program combined with a government mandate for all to purchase health insurance). There is a public option in the House bill, but it is not one which ties reimbursement rates to Medicare rates. It allows for providers to negotiate reimbursement rates. The other interesting thing about ObamaCare is that the health care taxes begin immediately, but the benefits don't kick in for four years or so. That's how ObamaCare "doesn't add one dime to the federal deficit." Ten years of taxes pay for six years of benefits. You aren't supposed to notice that, just as you aren't supposed to notice that ObamaCare cuts over $400 billion from Medicare to pay for itself, something that has never been accomplished before in the history of Medicare. Historically, it's been the Democrats who said Republicans were trying to kill grandma by proposing much smaller Medicare cuts than ObamaCare proposes. Now it's the Democrats proposing the cuts, and the Republicans are the ones saying the Democrats are trying to kill grandma. Things have come full circle. Go figure.

Many of these new taxes will be either implemented against the middle class or passed down to them (non-insurance penalty, tax on medical devices, employer taxes, limits on FSA's and HSA's). This reminds me of something President Obama said on the campaign trail last year:

I can make a firm pledge, under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.

Sure Barry, whatever you say. The One broke that pledge a couple weeks after being inaugurated by raising the tax on cigarettes, and now he wants to break it again with health care reform. Then he wants to break his pledge again with cap and trade, which would be a huge tax increase that filters down to every American household. Various other Democrats want to tax sodas, gasoline, fast foods, heating oil, cigarettes some more, expensive health care plans (Senate health care plan), and anything else they can dream up. Democrats are engaged in the game of 1,001 ways to raise your taxes without you knowing they've raised your taxes.

And all this during what Democrats themselves term as the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Gee, what could possibly go wrong ?

Hey, I know. We can just keep passing $800 billion stimulus packages every single year, basically forever. That will "create or save" lots of jobs. Then everything will be just fine.

Just kidding. That would be a recipe for destruction, as any fifth grader could figure out. The problem is, that seems to BE the actual economic plan of the Democrats, at least until those millions of green jobs kick in sometime in the next couple decades.

That Obama sure is a good public speaker though. There's that.

Here's Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to President Barack Obama, speaking to CNN about Fox News:

I don't know how a clip could illustrated the dishonesty of politics any more than this clip does. When Jarrett is asked if Fox News is biased, she immediately answers "Of course they are biased. Of course they are." When CNN interviewer Campbell Brown follows up immediately by asking if MSNBC is also biased, Jarrett starts backtracking and deflecting, never answering the question (correct answer – Of course MSNBC is biased. Of course they are). Jarrett said, "Actually, I don't want to generalize all of Fox is biased or that another station is biased. I think what we want to do is look at it on a case-by-case basis. When we see a pattern of distortion, we're going to be honest about that pattern of distortion….We're actually calling everybody out. So this isn't anything that's simply directed at Fox. We just want the American people to have a really clear understanding."

Well, that's funny. I haven't heard the Obama administration call out any other network than Fox News. In fact, MSNBC's opinion show anchors were invited to the White House for a cozy little chat with Obama. Liar, liar, pants of fire, Ms. Jarrett.

And did you get a load of Jarrett saying on the video that the White House is "going to speak truth to power" ????? Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the White House IS THE POWER.

Valerie Jarrett admitted what this was really about. It's about health care reform, and the fact that Obama is having a difficult go of it. The majority of the American people are against it, and the majority of the American people are turning against Obama on the issues in general. It has become a disturbing trend of this administration to demonize anyone and everyone who gets in it's way. The insurance companies, the drug companies, the Chamber of Commerce, doctors, whomever. Obama even sank so low as to say doctors were cutting people's feet off for profit, for chrissakes. If you have to resort to demonizing people whose job is literally to save other people's lives, then you have a problem.

Politicians are professional liars by trade. You can choose to believe in the current bunch of liars if you wish, but I sure don't. You may think it's fine for the government to force all Americans to buy health insurance as a condition of residency, but I don't. I guess we better change that old saying about death and taxes to death, taxes, and health insurance. The current bunch of professional liars is also bankrupting the country faster than any other. This administration also seems more partisan than any other in memory. I don't hear Obama talk about a problem that he doesn't blame on someone else first. To hear Obama talk, it seems there was no America prior to George W. Bush, because all the problems seem to have originated from that one man.

And do any of you really believe that ObamaCare won't add one dime to the deficit ??? Really ??? Do you really believe Congress will cut $400-500 billion from Medicare to make that happen ? Really ???

If you are naive enough to believe that, check out this article on the "doctor fix" for Medicare, which would have added $247 billion to the deficit if the Republicans and thirteen Democrats hadn't voted it down. The Democrats tried to separate that $247 billion in debt out of ObamaCare and pass it as a standalone measure, so that ObamaCare "wouldn't add a dime to the deficit." (except for the $247 billion, of course).

Like I said, politicians are professional liars. The current group of liars isn't even particularly good at lying. It's just that the media has, to date, let them get away with it. It's time for that to stop. It's time for the press to be the ones speaking truth to power, as is their job. The White House is only speaking THEIR truth. That's not necessarily THE truth.

Earlier this week, I posted about the White House Enemies List, which consists mainly of Fox News and conservative talk radio. I assume ABC's Jake Tapper is also now on that list for daring to question the Great And Powerful Oz-bama team about bashing any media that isn't in Oz-bama's back pocket.

In that earlier post, my major complaint with Oz-bama's selective media bashing was this:

What really gets my goat about this is that Team Obama doesn't mind one bit when the media furiously spins things in Obama's favor. Everything the White House is saying about Fox News is true in reverse about MSNBC, who ceaselessly bashes the right, but no complaints from the administration about MSNBC's opinion journalism. No sir. They're perfectly fine with that. The White House is alright with opinion journalism when it represents the opinion of the White House.

Now it has come to light that not only is Oz-bama perfectly fine with HIS opinion journalists operating on news stations, he even calls them in for, let me make sure I quote this correctly, "two-and-a-half-hour off-the-record chats" to tell them what to say:

On Monday, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow were among several people who attended an off-the-record briefing with Pres. Obama at the White House. Sources tell us other attendees at the two-and-a-half hour chat included Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, Gwen Ifill of PBS and Gloria Borger of CNN. Perhaps not surprisingly, no one from Fox News was in the room.

Here's the full list of opinion journalist attendees at Oz-bama's "chat."

The White House has sent TVNewser the complete list of those who attended the off-the-record briefing Monday: Eugene Robinson, E.J. Dionne, Ron Brownstein, John Dickerson, Rachel Maddow, Frank Rich, Jerry Seib, Maureen Dowd, Keith Olbermann, Bob Herbert, Gloria Borger, and Gwen Ifill. Several members of the staff also attended.

The hypocrisy of the White House is off the charts. Notice that Oz-bama's off-the-record briefing with liberal opinion journalists came ONE DAY after Oz-bama's apparatchiks made the rounds demonizing Fox News on the sunday political talk shows. Team Oz-bama is so tuned in to MSNBC (the official White House news network), that it even e-mails corrections to MSNBC while it's talking heads are on-air. Un-be-liev-able. Meanwhile, Glenn Beck has been asking daily on his program for the White House to call and correct any errors Beck might be making. So far, nada.

On the heels of his "chat" with liberal opinion journalists, Oz-bama had this to say in an NBC exclusive interview, when asked if it was appropriate for the White House to determine what is or isn't a news organization:

"we are going to take media as it comes, and if media is operating basically as a talk radio format, that's one thing, and if it's operating as a news outlet, that's another. But it's not something I'm losing a lot of sleep over."

Sorry, Mr. President. That simply isn't credible. The man behind the curtain has been exposed. The President doesn't send out his flying monkeys to demonize one news outlet and then have two-and-a-half-hour meetings with friendly opinion media unless it's part of a media control strategy. If the prez wasn't losing sleep over Fox News, he could have spent that two-and-a-half-hours in more productive fashion…like, say, coming up with a strategy for the Afghanistan War or fixing the economy.

To prove further how much the White House DOESN'T "take the media as it comes," as if any further proof is needed, the White House tried to exclude Fox News from this week's interview with the Pay Czar, until the rest of the media objected. Even Oz-bama's media pals are objecting to his exclusionary tactics now, knowing what an outrageous and horrible precedent this would set:

Team Oz-bama. Creepier and creepier. Let's click our heels together three times and say "there's no place like America," where freedom of the press is considered a Constitutional right. I don't like this strange new land of Oz.

If you want to know why the White House wishes to discredit Fox News, look no further than this post. Today, I'm going to post something I first heard from Glenn Beck (cue the liberal wailing and gnashing of teeth). This is from a 2008 speech by Ron Bloom, President Obama's Manufacturing Czar:

Here's are Ron Bloom's relevant words from that video again:

"Generally speaking we get the joke. We know that the free market is nonsense. We know that the whole point is to game the system, to beat the market, or at least find someone who will pay you a lot of money because they're convinced that there is a free lunch. We know this is largely about power, that it's an adults only, no limit game. We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun. And we get it that if you want a friend, you should get a dog."

Here we have Obama's Manufacturing Czar saying the free market is nonsense. This is the guy who's in charge of creating jobs in the manufacturing sector (yikes. Maybe the Associated Press is right when they say higher unemployment is "the new normal" for America). Bloom has a heavy union background, which is fine, but I'm left to wonder where Bloom thinks those union manufactured products are going to be sold, if not on that nonsensical free market. What is Bloom's alternative ? Is his alternative some type of government-controlled market ? When Bloom says in his next breath that he agrees with Mao that political power comes from the end of a gun, it does sound like government control is what he's talking about. If so, that's pretty frightening stuff, and about as unamerican as you can get.

I actually don't want to believe this. I hope there's some other explanation for Ron Bloom's words, and there could be. I hope this video is taken out of context, and he meant something else altogether, but I couldn't find anything on the internet to counter or provide more context to his statements. I really hope we don't have people in positions of authority in this country who believe such things.

Several conservatives are now running around saying, 'oh, look. Here's another Obama official endorsing Chairman Mao.' I have to take some issue with that, based upon my current knowledge. This isn't the same thing as Van Jones, Obama's former Green Jobs Czar, being an avowed communist. This isn't the same thing as Anita Dunn, Obama's communications director, saying Mao is one of her two favorite political philosophers. This is just Ron Bloom agreeing with one thing Mao said, and I actually agree with Bloom and Mao about that one thing. Political power often DOES come from the end of a gun. That's why our founding fathers designed a Constitution to limit government power. That's why I believe in that Constitution, and believe in limiting government power as much as humanly possible. The more power we cede to the government, the more powerful that government gun becomes. That's also why the free market is NOT nonsense, as Bloom would have us believe. The free market is essential to a free country. There is no acceptable alternative. As our founding documents state, our rights do not come from men, they come from a higher power. Our government exists to secure those rights, not to trample all over them.

The Nixon administration is back. Team Obama has identified the enemies, and found most of them working for Fox News. First, White House communications director Anita Dunn opined that Fox News was "opinion journalism masquerading as news." I took Dunn's initial criticism with a grain of salt, because this is a woman also cited the mass murderer Mao Tse-Tung as one of "my favorite political philosophers." Dunn ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow, but unfortunately, it has now become clear that Dunn wasn't just expressing her opinion. It has become clear that her words are part of the Nixon Obama administration's orchestrated attempt to marginalize and shut out a single media outlet, one that coincidentally happens to be more critical of the Obama administration than the rest. When asked about Dunn's comment, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said of Fox News, "I have watched many stories on that network that I have found not to be true." It would have been helpful if Gibbs named even one of those news stories, but he did not. On sunday, more White House officials joined the Team Obama 'Blackball Fox News' movement. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel lectured CNN, telling it that President Obama does not want "the CNNs and the others in the world [to] basically be led in following Fox." White House senior advisor David Axelrod urged other media outlets not to recognize Fox News as a news organization, by telling ABC's George Stephanopoulos, "Other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way. We're not going to treat them that way."

The Obama administration's blackball of Fox started in August. As Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday said on his show, "We wanted to ask Dunn about her criticism, but, as they've done every week since August, the White House refused to make any administration officials available to 'FOX News Sunday' to talk about this or anything else." The White House stopped making itself available to Fox News Sunday, (which, for the record, is not a right-wing show), after Wallace had the audacity to act like a journalist by fact-checking statements made by Tammy Duckworth, the assistant secretary of the Department of Veteran Affairs. Anita Dunn said fact-checking an administration official was "something I've never seen a Sunday show do." I can only assume Dunn never watched Meet The Press or any number of other sunday political shows in her entire Mao-worshipping life, because they fact-check politicians routinely. Tim Russert made a career out of it. Chris Wallace added, "They didn't say that our fact-checking was wrong. They just said that we had dared to fact-check."

Yes, how DARE Fox News question the great and powerful Obama administration. The last thing we need in this country are media outlets questioning the politicians in charge. What we need is a complacent and non-questioning media that blindly follows the party line disseminated by the Obamans. That's how Mao did it, and that's how almost every dictatorial government does it. They try to suppress and intimidate the media. Stalin, Castro, Chavez, and on down the line. It's standard operating procedure for practically every propaganda-spewing banana republic tyrant.

What really gets my goat about this is that Team Obama doesn't mind one bit when the media furiously spins things in Obama's favor. Everything the White House is saying about Fox News is true in reverse about MSNBC, who ceaselessly bashes the right, but no complaints from the administration about MSNBC's opinion journalism. No sir. They're perfectly fine with that. The White House is alright with opinion journalism when it represents the opinion of the White House.

Of course, the Duckworth fact-checking isn't really the issue. The Obama team isn't going to blackball an entire news organization over a couple statements by Wallace that contradict statements from a Veterans Affairs representative. The other phony excuse for blackballing Fox News is that they didn't carry one Obama speech (even though Obama has been on television more than any President in history, by far) . Democratic operative Terry Mcauliffe, who said he had spoken to White House officials, used that lame excuse on this week's Fox News Sunday program, but in fact, Fox News DID carry that Obama speech. It was the Fox network affiliate that didn't carry it. Mcauliffe also brought up Glenn Beck calling Obama a racist. I didn't like it when Beck said that, but think about this for a second. The left routinely calls people on the right racist, from the Tea Party protesters, to Rush Limbaugh (by attributing false quotes to Limbaugh), to a number of southern politicians, and on and on. Playing the race card is one of the left's standard political tactics. If it's reprehensible when Glenn Beck does it, it's reprehensible when liberals do it too, and liberals do it far, far, far more often. Even Obama did it. His operatives played the race card against both Bill and Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primaries. Obama spouted that "typical white person" remark, not to mention this almost universally ignored comment from Obama, "Are some voters not going to vote for me because I’m African-American ? Those are the same voters who probably wouldn’t vote for me because of my politics.” What is that, but Obama calling conservatives racists ??? And I'm not even going to go into Obama's Pastor, Reverend Wright, who Obama said was "like a member of my family" (until he became a political liability, after which Obama removed him from the family).

In retrospect, perhaps my Nixon administration reference is incorrect. Nixon had an enemies list, but I don't recall him or any other American president blackballing a major news organization before. I'm not saying it never happened. I'm just saying I don't remember it happening. This makes the Obama administration appear petty and small at best.

Oh, and guess who's NOT on the White House enemies list any longer ? The indicted war criminal Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese leader who has engineered genocide and slavery in Darfur. Obama has dramatically softened his previous position on the Sudan. Maybe Fox News should slaughter huge numbers of people like al-Bashir or Mao to get Obama to push the reset button with them too. I don't know. I can't figure out the formula. The One pursues diplomatic relations with Iran and a genocidal beast, but those Fox News conservatives right here in America…nope, can't handle them. They must be blackballed.

The creepy factor with this administration continues to rise.

Okay, I'm lying. Obama wasn't named the greatest person since Jesus. Not yet, anyway. Instead, he was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. When I first heard about Obama's tremendous "accomplishment," I thought it was some kind of a joke, especially because everybody on MSNBC's Morning Joe program was laughing as they made the announcement. Once I realized Obama really did win the prize, I immediately thought…….FOR WHAT ? I'm still trying to figure out FOR WHAT, even after hearing the Nobel spokeman's explanation, which follows:

"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said. "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."

The committee said it attached special importance to Obama's vision of, and work for, a world without nuclear weapons.

"Obama has as president created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play," the committee said.

Hopenchange gone global. What's even more interesting about Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize is that the nomination deadline for this year's prize was February 1st, EIGHT DAYS after Obama's inauguration. For what did Obama get nominated EIGHT DAYS after his inauguration ? For not being George W. Bush ? It seems so. Not that the Nobel committee is political or anything.

Regarding Obama's "accomplishments," as stated by the Nobel committee, no nuclear weapons have been dismantled, and we are still fighting two wars in the Middle East. All that has changed from the Bush administration is the rhetoric. Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize For Rhetoric. That sets the bar pretty low, in my opinion. Maybe the field of candidates this year was really weak. I don't know.

Three other American presidents have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and, unlike Obama, they all did something to earn it. The first was Teddy Roosevelt, who negotiated an end to the Russo-Japanese war. The second was Woodrow Wilson, who founded the League Of Nations. The third was Jimmy Carter, who mediated the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt. When Carter won the award in 2002, the Nobel Organization cited the following:

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2002 to Jimmy Carter, for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.

And to think, what took Carter "decades" to accomplish, Obama did in only EIGHT DAYS.

Hmmm. Maybe Obama really is the greatest person since Jesus. I wonder why he hasn't turned water into jobs yet.

Or maybe the Nobel Committee is a joke. They've given Barack Obama the Nobel Peace Prize because he's Barack Obama. They've given him the Nobel Peace Prize for making a few speeches.

Gimme a break.

"For those who question the character and cause of my nation, I ask you to look at the concrete actions we have taken in just nine months." - President Barack Hussein Obama, narcissist, addressing the United Nations, September, 2009.

I'm sure glad Barry came along and fixed the character and cause of this nation after 232 years of American villainy, aren't you ? On the bright side, at least he didn't call pre-Obama America "The Great Satan." And our President spoke these words in front of an audience that included the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, Moammar Gadhafi, and a slew of other human rights violators (many of whom are on the Orwellian UN Human Rights Council).
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"Since Americans can only be prodded into doing something with money, we need to tax crappy foods that make us sick like we do with cigarettes, and alcohol." - pot-smoking comedian Bill Maher, September, 2009.

Unbelievably, Maher calls himself a Libertarian. In reality, he's just another authoritarian left-winger. Someone should familiarize Maher with the words "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." It's none of Bill Maher's business who smokes, drinks, or eats what, which Maher would quickly realize if someone took his weed away. Maher's "libertarianism" extends only to his desire to get high. What a hypocrite.
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"Is capitalism a sin ?" - Leni Riefenstahl Award-winning, Castro-loving filmmaker Michael Moore, in a trailer from his forthcoming movie, Capitalism, A Love Story.

The answer from Moore's questionee is "yes," by the way, capitalism IS a sin. Hugo Chavez couldn't have said it better.
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"President Obama didn't make much news on his round of five Sunday talk shows … with one notable exception. The President revealed a great deal about his philosophy of government and how he defines a tax increase. It turns out the President thinks a health-care tax is not a tax if he thinks the tax is for your own good. … Mr. Obama was asked by [ABC] host George Stephanopoulos about the 'individual mandate.' Under Max Baucus's Senate bill that Mr. Obama supports, everyone would be required to buy health insurance or else pay a penalty as high as $3,800 a year. Mr. Stephanopoulos posed the obvious question about this kind of coercion when 'the government is forcing people to spend money, fining you if you don't [buy insurance]. … How is that not a tax?' 'Well, hold on a second, George,' Mr. Obama replied. 'Here's what's happening. You and I are both paying $900, on average — our families — in higher premiums because of uncompensated care. Now what I've said is that if you can't afford health insurance, you certainly shouldn't be punished for that. That's just piling on. If, on the other hand, we're giving tax credits, we've set up an exchange, you are now part of a big pool, we've driven down the costs, we've done everything we can and you actually can afford health insurance, but you've just decided, you know what, I want to take my chances. And then you get hit by a bus and you and I have to pay for the emergency room care, that's…' 'That may be,' Mr. Stephanopoulos responded, 'but it's still a tax increase.' (In fact, uncompensated care accounts for about only 2.2% of national health spending today, but that's another subject.) Mr. Obama: 'No. That's not true, George. The — for us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it's saying is, is that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore…' In other words, like parents talking to their children, this levy — don't call it a tax — is for your own good. … Mr. Obama complains that 'My critics say everything is a tax increase,' as if that is his political problem. His real problem is that the individual mandate really is a tax, but the President doesn't want voters to think of it that way, because taxes are unpopular." –The Wall Street Journal, September, 2009.

Yes, of course, Obama's penalty for not having health insurance is a tax, no matter what he wants to call it. Obama probably wouldn't consider his cap-and-trade proposal a tax either, but that's exactly what it is. The creative subterfuge being engaged in by Democrats these days is to pass tax increases without calling them tax increases. Instead, they are called penalties, mandates, fees, carbon allowances, etc. Does this stuff actually fool anyone ? (except for liberals, that is). I hope not. Obama isn't "helping the little guy" one bit, in case anyone hasn't noticed (and the media sure hasn't). He's only raising the little guy's expenses, through both direct and indirect means. This brings to mind Ronald Reagan's quote about the most terrifying words in the english language – "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."
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"We understand the gravity of the climate threat. We are determined to act. And we will meet our responsibility to future generations." - Barack Obama, speaking at the UN climate change conference, September, 2009.

"Responsibility to future generations," eh ? More than a tad ironic, coming from the President who is running up the debt faster than every other administration in history combined, thereby irresponsibly ruining the prospects of future generations.
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"It doesn't smell of sulfur here anymore. It smells of something else. It smells of hope." - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, addressing the UN, September, 2009.

The "sulfur" smell was Bush, whom Chavez called "the devil" at last year's UN meeting. The "hope" smell is Obama. It's sure nice that we've won over Chavez, don't you think ? Yes, he may be a tyrannical nut who nationalizes industries, shuts down opposition media, and puts opposition political figures in jail, but that's the socialist way. Because Chavez's version of "hope" would be hope of a worldwide socialist revolution, I wonder what it is he likes so much about Obama ??? I can agree with Chavez on this much – something smells alright.

President Bush tried to cut Medicare spending several times to trim the deficits and offset rising health care costs. Each time, he was vilified by the Democrats, and Democrats voted as a bloc against those cuts, defeating them every time. In 2008, they even overrode a Bush veto to stop Bush from implementing Medicare cuts. The various sizes of the proposed Bush Medicare cuts were between $35 billion over five years, $105 billion over ten years, and $278 billion over ten years.

Now, it's all somehow different. President Obama is calling for $622 billion in Medicare/Medicaid cuts over ten years, far more than Bush ever proposed, and the Democrats have suddenly come to the realization that the Medicare entitlements are unsustainable, threatening to bankrupt the nation, and will drive the deficits through the roof. I assume the Democrats came to this realization the same day Barack Obama became President Of The United States. The same Democrats who opposed Bush's Medicare cuts are perfectly fine with Obama's much larger Medicare cuts. While I'm glad the Democrats have finally awakened somewhat to the reality of the entitlement crisis, their hypocrisy is deafening.

Watch this video, and then tell me if PARTISAN POLITICS isn't the reason behind everything in Washington, D.C. Check out the blather coming from Kennedy and Kerry in particular:

Hard to believe, isn't it ?

Not only are the Democrats proposing huge Medicare/Medicaid cuts in their health care reform bills, but they are trying to pretend their Medicare cuts aren't really cuts at all (the 'pay no attention to the man behind the curtain' defense), and they are trying to silence and threaten those who point out the obvious, that yes, Medicare cuts really are cuts, and will impact patients.

Humana, a large private Medicare Advantage insurer, sent out letters to it's customers, pointing out that Medicare Advantage services will have to be curtailed under the Democratic health reform bills. The noble Obama administration, staunch defenders of the Constitution, leapt into action against Humana, ordering it to cease and desist engaging in all that, um, free speech. Then the government launched an investigation of Humana. Democrats denounced Humana as liars, and when some Republicans pointed out an inconvenient truth, that Humana was right, Democrats went into Pavlovian mode and started demonizing Republicans as handmaidens of the insurance industry. What a creepy and shameless bunch these Dems have become.

Even more inconveniently for the Democrats, the Congressional Budget Office backs up Humana and the Republicans. The CBO says Medicare benefits will be cut. Combined with the previous CBO statements – that Medicare premiums will rise under ObamaCare, that overall health care costs will rise under ObamaCare, that Medicare prescription drug prices will increase by 20% under ObamaCare, and that ObamaCare isn't paid for and will add to the deficit, it appears the Democrats are merely trying to pull the wool over everyone's eyes.

The silver lining to all this is, there really isn't a health care reform bill yet. There are a series of bills (all deeply flawed), so there's still time to change the wrongheadedness in the bills. We all want to do something to reform health care, but we don't want to do the WRONG thing. We don't want to make the health care system even worse. The Democrats are looking to finish up and vote on ObamaCare in a couple weeks. Time is running out.

I've pretty much had my fill of liberals condemning free speech, and then using the specters of racism and/or violent right-wing boogeymen as the excuse. In my last three posts, I have outlined examples of the left calling the right racist. It's the number one argument they use to discount the Tea Party protests. That argument was shot down by President Obama himself on Meet The Press on sunday:

DAVID GREGORY: …this week you had former President Jimmy Carter saying most, not just a little, but most of this Republican opposition against you is motivated by racism. Do you agree with that?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: No. Look, I said, during the campaign, are there some people who still think through the prism of race when it comes to evaluating me and my candidacy? Absolutely. Sometimes they vote for me for that reason, sometimes they vote against me for that reason. I'm sure that was true during the campaign, I'm sure that's true now. But I think you actually put your finger on what this argument's really about. And it's an argument that's gone on for the history of this republic. And that is what's the right role of government? How do we balance freedom with our need to look after one another?

The President is absolutely correct. The argument here is about the role of government, not race. The President pointed out that the argument about the government's role goes all the way back to Thomas Jefferson versus Alexander Hamilton, and that it always evokes passionate debate. Nothing has changed. Our President is apparently much more intelligent than many of his clueless supporters, who play the race card at the drop of a hat. Kudos to President Obama for saying this.

After the racism charge, the number two free speech stopper used by the left is the politics of fear (which I seem to remember the left condemning not too long ago, ironically enough), in the form of those right-wing boogeymen I mentioned earlier. Apparently, liberals think there are cadres of right-wing nutjobs sitting in front of tv sets and radios all across the country, with their helmets on, armed with hand guns, hand grenades, and Billy Beer, just waiting for Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, or Glenn Beck to give them their marching orders about who or what to go blow up. We saw Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) playing the politics of fear card recently, when she weepily worried about potential violence in front of the cameras. The latest version of this inanity I've read came from the blissfully ignorant Media Matters (aka, George Soros Media Inc.), who had a profound enough lack of self-awareness to write a piece called 'A President was killed the last time right-wing hatred ran wild like this'. That President was John F. Kennedy, of course, and, as much as I hate to pierce Media Matters' bubble of historical revisionism, JFK was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, a self-avowed communist. The last I heard, communism was a left-wing ideology. It wasn't "right-wing hatred" that killed JFK. It was left-wing hatred. Not that Media Matters let's the truth get in the way of a good old phony political diatribe.

I can point out ten acts of left-wing violence for every act of right-wing violence over the last several decades, and left-wing governments killed approximately 100 million people in the 20th century alone, (yet somehow liberals NEVER profess a fear of left-wing violence), but liberals do have a real right-wing boogeyman to whom they can point. That is Timothy McVeigh, the man who blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in the 1990's, killing 168 people. Heinous. He received the death penalty, which he richly deserved.

McVeigh was an anti-tax, anti-big government Libertarian who voted for Libertarian candidate Harry Browne in the 1996 Presidential election. That makes McVeigh sound a lot like……ME. I voted for Harry Browne, and I agree with many Libertarian ideas. In light of McVeigh's violence, the question is, does that make the ideas themselves dangerous ??? Should I stop writing what I do because some nut might misinterpret it ? Should I self-censor my political rhetoric ? Liberals have been answering "YES" to that question for months now. They see a bunch of peaceful Tea Party protests (zero examples of right-wing violence) as some kind of powder keg, ready to explode. Liberal accuse the Tea Partiers of fear-mongering even as liberals fear-monger themselves. It's absurd, and we should all be able to see right through it.

Here are a couple things Timothy McVeigh said that I agree with (horrors ! You better arrest me NOW):

"Taxes are a joke. Regardless of what a political candidate "promises," they will increase. More taxes are always the answer to government mismanagement. They mess up. We suffer. Taxes are reaching cataclysmic levels, with no slowdown in sight"

"The government is afraid of the guns people have because they have to have control of the people at all times. Once you take away the guns, you can do anything to the people. You give them an inch and they take a mile. I believe we are slowly turning into a socialist government. The government is continually growing bigger and more powerful."

Dangerous ideas ? I think not. The Founding Fathers held those ideas, and they are ideas about liberty. I think the dangerous people are the ones who don't object to the ever-growing government, which has the inevitable crushing effect of taking away ever more property and choice (freedom) from the citizenry. McVeigh's gigantic mistake was moving into calls for civil war and violence. Naturally, I don't agree with that. I'm all for using peaceful means, as Martin Luther King advocated. You don't defeat tyranny by becoming a tyrant yourself. In America, we can defeat tyranny at the ballot box.

What McVeigh does represent is what I'll call The Lunatic Factor. We have a country of over 300 million people. Because human nature is fallible, some of those people are bound to be unhinged (I should name names here, but I'll resist). These people might listen to political speech and be motivated to do stupid and destructive things, as McVeigh did. What liberals seem not to understand is, this can manifest itself across the political spectrum. Liberals quake in their boots over largely imaginary right-wing violence, but then they turn around and call right-wingers racists, which is about as inflammatory as political rhetoric can get. If so-called "dangerous" speech is to be controlled, as liberals are advocating, then we can start with the liberals themselves. By labeling all the Tea Party protesters as racists, are not liberals, by their own standards, inciting violence against those alleged "racists" ? After all, racists are dangeous people who must be stopped. If Limbaugh and Beck are inciting violence, so are Olbermann, Garofalo, Maxine Waters, Jimmy Carter, etc.

It's one more liberal example of "do as I say, not as I do." The lack of self-awareness is nothing short of astounding. Are liberals incapable of remembering all the way back to LAST YEAR, when they were calling former President Bush all manners of inflammatory names ? For that matter, they still are calling Bush those names.

The bottom line here is, free speech is allowed in this country. We can't ever allow that to be lost. The people we should always cast a skeptical eye upon are the ones who are attempting to stifle it with their scare tactics. At this moment in history, the stiflers in this country are coming from the left. That also happens to be where the stiflers most often come from – from the big, all-powerful totalitarian governments the left is constantly advocating for (knowingly or not). The belief in freedom is not just an ideological exercise. The real world consequences are immense.

One thing I've never been able to understand in the health care reform debate is why the Republican idea to allow health insurance companies to compete on a nationwide basis isn't incorporated into the health care reform bill(s). President Obama stresses competition as the primary reason for the public option, but every thinking person knows the private sector can't compete with the federal government. If we want competition in a free market, competition must be between those IN THE FREE MARKET. The government isn't part of that.

The reason we don't have a functioning free market in health care is due to the government itself. Ann Coulter's recent column explains it pretty well:

The only reason you can't keep — or often obtain — health insurance if you move or lose your job now is because of … government intrusion into the free market.

You will notice that if you move or lose your job, you can obtain car and home insurance, hairdressers, baby sitters, dog walkers, computer technicians, cars, houses, food and every other product and service not heavily regulated by the government. (Although it does become a bit harder to obtain free office supplies.)

Federal tax incentives have created a world in which the vast majority of people get health insurance through their employers. Then to really screw ordinary Americans, the tax code actually punishes people who don't get their health insurance through an employer by denying individuals the tax deduction for health insurance that their employers get.

Meanwhile, state governments must approve the insurers allowed to operate in their states, while mandating a list of services — i.e. every "medical" service with a powerful lobby — which is why Joe and Ruth Zelinsky, both 88, of Paterson, N.J., are both covered in case either one of them ever needs a boob job.

If Democrats really wanted people to be able to purchase health insurance when they move or lose a job as easily as they purchase car insurance and home insurance (or haircuts, dog walkers, cars, food, computers), they could do it in a one-page bill lifting the government controls and allowing interstate commerce in health insurance. This is known as "allowing the free market to operate."

(Note to liberals – Just because it's Coulter saying it doesn't mean it's not true. What I quoted here is ALL true.)

The government has intruded into health care time and again, forcing costs up every step of the way. We have a tightly controlled and mandated health care market, and then the same government agents who created this environment complain about a lack of competition and high prices, when they WON'T ALLOW TRUE FREE MARKET COMPETITION.

The Republicans don't have many good ideas about health care reform, but they have a few. National free market health insurance competition is a good one. So is allowing individuals to make their health care insurance 100% tax deductible. So is tort reform. If President Obama wants the bipartisan bill that he says he does, why aren't any of these things included ?

What we are heading for now is one of two worlds, either 1) a health care reform bill with a public option that will destroy the private insurance industry, resulting in a government insurance monopoly, or 2) a health care reform bill without a public option, and with no cost controls in place for private insurers. This would be a huge giveaway to the insurance companies.

Neither of these options is acceptable, and in both cases, the government will be FORCING people to buy health insurance. Some choice.

The government should go back to the drawing board. There's no reason a real bipartisan bill cannot be produced that bends down the health care cost curve and gives us a free market as well. What the government should do is oversee the free market, not trample all over it. We should have a bill that doesn't allow insurers to eliminate pre-existing conditions, that doesn't allow insurers to drop or deny coverage, and that doesn't allow insurers to profit excessively, but as free citizens in a free country, we should have the right to get the health insurance coverage that WE want, not what the government dictates for us.

“Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.” - Senator Barack Obama, in a 2006 floor speech preceding a Senate vote to extend the federal debt limit.

Ah, how I liked THAT Barack Obama back in 2006, when he was railing against the irresponsible fiscal policies of President Bush and his GOP-led Congress. I even went out and bought Obama's book, The Audacity Of Hope. Obama seemed different. He was the post-partisan, responsible voice for change. Obama's book turned out to be pretty light on substance, but his rhetorical fluorishes promised a new kind of politics that could bring left and right together for the betterment of the country.

Too bad it was all rubbish. Obama's idea of bipartisanship is to have Democrats write all the bills, to ignore all Republican suggestions, and to have Republicans sit quietly in the corner and go along with whatever Obama and the Dems want. When Republicans refused to do that, an absolute certainty, Obama and company then demonized them as the "failed policies of the past," the "party of no," "racists," "dividers," "rightwing domestic terrorists (my personal fave)," and so on and so forth.

Speaking of the failed policies of the past, Democrats voted as a bloc against raising the federal debt limit back in 2006, when Obama was allegedly so concerned about shifting bad policy choices onto the backs of our children. Since then, after the Democrats took over Congress and eventually the White House, the debt limit has been raised three times. Now the Senate needs to raise it again, because we are going to exceed the current $12 trillion debt limit next month. We're going to have to keep on raising it too, because both the White House and Congressional Budget Office agree that Obama and the Democrats are going to add another $9 trillion to the debt (and the Dems have lots MORE groovy new spending plans they haven't implemented yet.) Apparently, Obama isn't quite so concerned about the burdens our children will have to bear anymore. Instead, he has declared open season on their futures. Ironically, it's the young people who seem to support Obama the most. Go figure. It's like falling in love with your executioner.

The rest of the world has taken notice of America's massive financial irresponsibility and is proposing changes. China wants to back away from buying U.S. debt, alarmed over massive American money printing (backed by nothing). China sees rampant U.S. inflation coming as soon as the recession ends. Can't argue with them there. The UN wants to move to a new world currency other than the dollar for similar reasons. The dollar just hit a new low for the year, and we're still hemorrhaging jobs at an alarming pace, with unemployment at a 26-year high. In addition, the FHA, which has taken over as the new securitized subprime mortgage lender of choice after the private lenders stopped making those boneheaded loans in the wake of the housing meltdown, is coming perilously close to not meeting it's 2% reserve requirements, as the economy continues to tank and foreclosures continue to rise. A new bailout for the FHA, perhaps ? Hey, why not ? What's another $100 billion these days ?

So naturally, with all this "good" news abounding, our Vice President, Joe Biden, recently declared, "The recovery act has played a significant role in changing the trajectory of our economy." Sure, Joe, whatever you say. Everything's going great. Keep creating your own reality. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

When all is said and done, the plans of the Democrats are the same as they always are, and as simple as the directions on a bottle of shampoo – Spend. Tax. Repeat.

The children be damned.

First of all, good riddance to Van Jones, President Obama's former Green Jobs Czar. As I wrote previously, he is a radical loon who doesn't belong anywhere near the White House. I'm glad he resigned (or was forced to resign. We may never know). I'd be more than happy to never write about him again, but some comments from Democrats subsequent to Jones' resignation, together with Van Jones own resignation statement, compel to bring him up one more time.

Let's start with liberal radio talker Alan Colmes, who said "Van Jones is a mainstream liberal." Wow. Let's hope not. If Van Jones is a mainstream liberal, then a mainstream liberal is a radical Communist revolutionary race-mongering anti-semitic 9/11 Truther who thinks white polluters are targeting minority populations, who thinks whitey is spraying toxins on illegal immigrants, who thinks the entire American capitalist system should be overthrown, who thinks Republicans are a**holes, who thinks all wealth should be redistributed, who thought the Rodney King race riots were righteous, and who supports Mumia Abu Jamal, the cop killer. If Van Jones is a mainstream liberal, this country is in even deeper trouble than I thought. I better step up my attacks on liberals. Granted, I have heard pretty much all the above sentiments echoed by liberals, but I thought it was mainly confined to the lunatic fringe of liberaldom, the acolytes so blinded by propaganda that they can't see what divisive hatemongers like Van Jones are promoting, which is nothing less than the destruction of the very system that made America the world's pre-eminent economic, scientific, and military power (note to liberals – if you were offended by this reference to American exceptionalism and feel urged to rebut it, YOU are one of the lunatic fringe).

Next up is former Vermont Governor and former DNC Chairman Howard Dean, who said Van Jones' resignation was a "loss for the country." A loss for the country ? What country, Cuba, Venezuela, or what ? Certainly not this one.

Then there is the laughable resignation statement made by Van Jones himself:

"On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy , opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me. They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide."

And, of course, by "vicious smear campaign," and "lies and distortions," Jones means – accurate, direct quotes of Jones exact words, with accompanying videotape and corroborating written proof. Jones is literally saying, "who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes ?" Classic.

The only remaining questions are:

How did Van Jones ever get to the White House in the first place ? Isn't there supposed to be a vetting process ? Will the "most transparent administration in history" bother to answer these questions ? I'd be amazed if it does. What I expect we will get is more of the usual non-answers from Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, combined with the type of blather spewed by Obama's professional spin-doctor David Axelrod on Meet The Press. Check out Axelrod's changing responses to David Gregory's questions about Van Jones:

MR. GREGORY: Van Jones, who's been an adviser to the White House on environmental policy, resigned overnight because of some inflammatory comments he's made over time, including a petition he signed that blamed the government for the 9/11 attacks. Was this an issue that got to the president? Did he personally order that he be fired?

MR. AXELROD: Absolutely not. This was an, an–this was Van Jones' own decision. You know, he is internationally known as an advocate for green jobs. And that's the basis on which he was hired. He said in his statement that he didn't want his comments to become a distraction from the issue, which is so important to the future of our economy and communities around the country. And I commend him for making that decision.

MR. GREGORY: Was he the victim of a smear campaign as he alleges?

MR. AXELROD: Well, look, this is a–you know, the politician environment is, is, is, is rough and so, you know, these things get magnified. But the bottom line is that he's showed his commitment to the cause of creating green jobs in this country by removing himself as a, as an issue and I think that took, that took a great deal of commitment on his part.

MR. GREGORY: But was the president offended by what he said?

MR. AXELROD: I haven't spoken to the president about this. As you know, this, this thing has bubbled up in the last few days, and frankly, my conversation with the president have mostly been about health care, which is where our focus should be right now.

MR. GREGORY: Do you find it–what he said objectionable?

MR. AXELROD: Well, I haven't read all of, of his comments, either, David. Again, I'm focused on how we get health security for all Americans, how we get this economy moving in the right direction. We've pulled back from the abyss of a potential collapse and now we have to build for the future and get people back to work. I think those are the things that we should be focused on and that's what I am focused on.

Notice that Axelrod said "absolutely not" when asked if the President ordered Van Jones to be fired, but then in a later question said he hadn't even spoken to the President about Van Jones. Sounds like that "absolutely not" from Axelrod is an "official version" rather than a statement of fact, though it's always difficult to tell when, if ever, Axelrod is being honest. After that, Axelrod pretended to not even know what objectionable statements Van Jones made, in order to weasel out of answering another question. Like I said, spin is what David Axelrod does. He's not even very good at it (but better than Robert Gibbs, who is the Scott McClellan of the Obama administration, or worse), if you ask me, but he gets by with it, because the media never presses him very hard on much of anything.

In any case, bye bye Van Jones. Get your weak-ass crap outa here, and don't let the door hit you in the backside on the way out. Maybe there's an opening for a Communist Green Jobs Czar in China. You can apply at culturalrevolution.com.

One of the most disturbing things about Barack Obama is not Obama himself, but rather some of the people around him, including several people he has put into positions of authority. I've already detailed the radical nature of a couple Obama administration personnel, Science Czar John Holdren and FCC Diversity Officer Mark Lloyd. Holdren has a number of crazy beliefs, among them being the idea that the U.S. Constitution doesn't entitle people to have children. Holdren declared “neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution mentions a right to reproduce" in his 1977 book, Ecoscience. Evidently, Holdren missed the second sentence in the Declaration of Independence – "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." In Holdren's defense, he only attended MIT and Stanford. Maybe they don't teach the basics at those elite schools. I don't know. I could only afford to go to Podunk University in Backwater, USA (so I am oppressed and demand reparations ! Just kidding. My inner whiny liberal took over for a second there). Yet, somehow I know the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution better than Holdren does. I must have read about it on a bathroom wall somewhere, or maybe at a gun show.

Mark Lloyd is another elite. He was a professor at Georgetown and a visiting lecturer at MIT prior to becoming a Hugo Chavez-loving Nazi hell-bent on destroying free speech on America's airwaves. Here's a quote from the well-educated Professor Lloyd:

“It should be clear by now that my focus here is not freedom of speech or the press. . . . This freedom is all too often an exaggeration. . . . At the very least, blind references to freedom of speech or the press serve as a distraction from the critical examination of other communications policies.”

Yes, Mr. Lloyd, it certainly IS clear that your focus is not free speech. That's why you should take the Che poster down from the wall of your office, clean out your desk, and go peddle your commie crap someplace like Cuba or Venezuela, but not here. Not in this country. We still call this the land of the free, not the land of government diktat.

Another Communist in the Obama administration is the eminent Van Jones, the Green Jobs Czar. Mr. Jones went to Yale, so he's a real smart fellow, just like the other radical nutjobs I've mentioned. Jones claims to have been radicalized by the Rodney King verdict. By his own words, that drove him to embrace Marxism. I can't say I follow Mr. Jones' logic there, but like I said, I'm not one of the elite. To me, embracing communism because of a perceived American civil rights injustice is like jumping out of an airplane in flight because you don't like your seat. It's a hysterical and moronic overreaction. Maybe Jones doesn't realize that, under Communism, YOU DON'T HAVE ANY CIVIL RIGHTS to begin with. What a boob, er, I mean, deep thinker. Liberal groups have been claiming that Jones radical Communist days are behind him, but here's Van Jones in April, 2009:

"This [green] movement is deeper than a solar panel! Deeper than a solar panel! Don't stop there! Don't stop there! We're gonna change the whole system! We're gonna change the whole thing. We're not gonna put a new battery in a broken system. We want a new system. We want a new system!…And our Native American sisters and brothers who were pushed and bullied and mistreated and shoved into all the land we didn't want, where it was all hot and windy. Well, guess what? Renewable energy? Guess what, solar industry? Guess what wind industry? They now own and control 80 percent of the renewable energy resources. No more broken treaties. No more broken treaties. Give them the wealth! Give them the wealth! Give them the dignity. Give them the respect that they deserve. No justice on stolen land. We owe them a debt…What about our immigrant sisters and brothers? What about our immigrant sisters and brothers? What about people who come here from all around the world who we're willing to have out in the field, with poison being sprayed on them, poison being sprayed on them because we have the wrong agricultural system. And we're willing to poison them and poison the earth to put food on our table, but we don't want to give them rights and we don't want to give them dignity and we don't want to give them respect?…We're really entering a third wave of environmentalism in the United States. The white polluters and the white environmentalists are essentially steering poison into the people of color communities."

Sounds to me like Jones is still a radical, and a race-baiter to boot. Whitey is poisoning people of color ????? We need to change the whole system ? Into what, Mr. Marxist ? Glenn Beck has been on a tirade against Van Jones for awhile now, and a group Van Jones founded, Color Of Change, has been trying to get Beck kicked off the air (which kinda proves Jones is a Communist. That's what Communists do, silence the opposition. They aren't about the free and open exchange of ideas, in case anyone hasn't figured that out yet).

The next commie-loving race-baiter on the radical hit parade isn't a member of Obama's administration, but her stupidity merits recognition. Her name is Diane Watson, Democratic Congresswoman from California. This woman LOVES her some Fidel Castro, and is so lost in identity politics that she can't even think straight. Dig it:

"You might have heard their philosophical leader. I think his name is Rush Limbaugh. And he said early on, “I hope that he fails.”…And remember: They are spreading fear and they are trying to see that the first president that looks likes me fails [Watson is black]…. just want you to know: People look at the United States as a country that has changed its way and has elected someone from Kenya and Kansas, I’ll put it like that. And they’re saying, “We thought you would never do that.” So we don’t want to have this young man, and he just turned 48 — we want him to succeed, because when he succeeds, we regain our status. We regain our status….

It was just mentioned to me by our esteemed speaker, “Did anyone say anything about the Cuban health system?”

And lemme tell ya, before you say “Oh, it’s a commu–”, you need to go down there and see what Fidel Castro put in place. And I want you to know, now, you can think whatever you want to about Fidel Castro, but he was one of the brightest leaders I have ever met. [APPLAUSE]

And you know, the Cuban revolution that kicked out the wealthy, Che Guevara did that, and then, after they took over, they went out among the population to find someone who could lead this new nation, and they found…well, just leave it there (laughs), an attorney by the name of Fidel Castro…"

First of all, Ms. Watson, we are allowed to oppose Obama's policies, even though he looks like you. His skin color is completely irrelevant, except to those like yourself who are too blind to see anything else. These race-based comments are really just attempts at thought suppression. There's no other way to view them.

About Cuba, yes, please, let's "go down there and see what Fidel Castro put in place." I believe the generally accepted term for it is OPPRESSION, along with a health dose of POVERTY, as happens with all Communist states. Cuba is a police state. Fortunately, the Democratic primary challenger for Watson's congressional seat doesn't share Watson's myopic view of Cuban health care. Let's vote him into office.

The final person on today's list is Cass Sunstein, Obama's Regulatory Czar. This guy is an intellectual heavyweight. He's a former Harvard Law Professor, and an expert in constitutional law, environmental law, and behavioral economics. I'm not certain how radical he is, because he's a complex man, but he has at least some very confused ideas. Here are a few of his elite ramblings:

“Much of the time, the United States seems to have embraced a confused and pernicious form of individualism. This approach endorses rights of private property and freedom of contract, and respects political liberty, but claims to distrust ‘government intervention’ and insists that people must fend for themselves. This form of so-called individualism is incoherent, a tangle of confusions"

This is quite the straw man argument. I don't know of a single person who doesn't think the government has a legitimate role to play. Government is uniquely qualified for certain roles, and those were laid out in the very beginning by the Constitution. What I distrust is GOVERNMENT INTRUDING INTO EVERY ASPECT OF SOCIETY, as it has been doing by gradual degree for my entire lifetime. And Mr. Sunstein, individualism is not "pernicious." Railing against it is.

"A system of limitless individual choices, with respect to communications, is not necessarily in the interest of citizenship and self-government"

This is Sunstein endorsing the Fairness Doctrine in order to control political speech. Looks like we have another nut who doesn't believe in free speech.

I just LOVE this next Sunstein quote. Love it.

“In what sense is the money in our pockets and bank accounts fully ‘ours’? Did we earn it by our own autonomous efforts? Could we have inherited it without the assistance of probate courts? Do we save it without the support of bank regulators? Could we spend it if there were no public officials to coordinate the efforts and pool the resources of the community in which we live?… Without taxes there would be no liberty. Without taxes there would be no property. Without taxes, few of us would have any assets worth defending. [It is] a dim fiction that some people enjoy and exercise their rights without placing any burden whatsoever on the public fisc. … There is no liberty without dependency. That is why we should celebrate tax day …”

Did we earn our own money ? Um, YES.
Did we earn it by our own efforts ? YES.
Could we have inherited it without probate courts ? YES.
Could we save it without bank regulators ? YES. (We could even save it without banks).
Could we spend it without public officials ? YES.

Sunstein sounds like the typical government drone, who thinks absolutely everything is derived from government. Wrong.

"Without taxes there would be no liberty," says Sunstein. To an extent, this is true, because taxation supports the government, which exists to secure our liberties. As George Washington said, "Freedom is not free." I think everyone agrees with that much. But should we "celebrate tax day" when our resources are stripped from us to pay for everything under the sun that the government can dream up, waaay beyond securing our liberty ? I think not. Should we celebrate pork barrel spending, special interest handouts, bailouts of the big corporations, the ripoff of our own Social Security system, private jets for congresspersons, trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities ? That would be NO. "Celebrate tax day," indeed. I'd almost as soon celebrate the day burglars broke into my home and stole my television, stereo, and my wife's jewelry. I never once thanked those burglars for helping to redistribute my wealth, nor will I thank the government for stealing my paycheck for unconstitutional purposes. Government exists to secure our liberties, not to rip them away.

"We spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama" – Andy Stern, President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

"I owe these unions." – Barack Obama

Obama hasn't forgotten he owes the unions, who were instrumental in getting him elected President. In his first two weeks in office, Obama issued three pro-union executive orders. In his third week in office, he issued a fourth pro-union executive order. The fortune spent spent by the SEIU to elect Obama ($60 million, according to the SEIU) has gained the union access to power. A number of SEIU officials have been named to the Obama team. Anna Burger, SEIU secretary-treasurer, was appointed to Obama's economic recovery board. White House political director Patrick Gaspard is a former SEIU executive. The unions also scored big when one of the most pro-union voices in the House of Representatives, Hilda Solis (D-CA), was named as Obama's Labor Secretary. The aforementioned SEIU President, Mr. Stern, says he visits the White House weekly, and has influence over issues from the stimulus package to health care reform to immigration. "We get heard," boasted Stern.

Vice President Joe Biden made no secret of the fact that Obama's stimulus package was aimed at boosting union jobs.

“We're going to make sure that in every policy, every decision, we don't lose sight of the folks that brought us to the dance,” [Biden] said — a reference to organized labor’s support of the Obama-Biden ticket. “And toward that end, we have to make sure that the jobs we're creating come with fair wages and decent benefits.”

Biden focused on the stimulus package, noting it will send taxpayer money through the pipeline to union jobs and specifically those in the building trades unions. "The focus of this administration the first month has been to rebuild American roads, bridges, waterways — jobs for the building trades union,” he said.

The stimulus package producing union jobs doesn't sound so bad, until you realize that only 12.5% of Americans workers are unionized. Where does that leave the other 87.5% of Americans ? Out in the cold. In addition, 84% of construction jobs are non-union. They aren't getting any help from Obama/Biden either. And those higher union wages for "shovel-ready" stimulus projects come directly from the pockets of the American taxpayers, not that our federal government ever gives a whit about them.

Btw, Obama has just announced that he's seeking a 2% pay raise for federal employees in 2010. That would be the federal employees unions, the teachers union, etc. That will cost the taxpayers roughly $20 billion more. While the rest of the workforce is losing jobs, getting their hours cut, and getting their paychecks reduced due to the recession, government employees roll merrily along and get their pay hikes, just as Congress did back in january (a $4,700 annual pay increase). The federal government spits directly in the face of the taxpayers at virtually every turn, and we just sit back and take it.

Now, it has come to light that the House health care bill, H.R. 3200, contains $10 billion to fund union retirees.

Greg Mourad of the National Right to Work Committee called it "a shameless case of political payback," saying Democrats and President Barack Obama are trying "to force the rest of us to pay billions to cover those unions' health care."

Big labor, primarily the UAW, thinks they didn't get ENOUGH taxpayer dollars from H.R. 3200. Incredible. Like we haven't bailed out the UAW enough already. With the taxpayer tab for the auto company bailouts running near $100 billion, Big Labor wants yet more and more, even after the unions emerged with large ownership stakes in GM and Chrysler following those companies highly politicized bankruptcy proceedings that rewarded the unions far in excess of investors. The unions will own 39% of GM, and 55% of Chrysler.

The upshot of all this is crystal clear – If you want something from the federal government, just buy the politicians. Same as it ever was.

Change You Can Believe In……..my butt.

"When special interests put their thumb on the scale, and distort the free market, the people who compete by the rules come in last." – Barack Obama, August 2008.

I guess we can throw that quote out in the trash with the others.

At a townhall meeting, former Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair Howard Dean was asked why tort reform is not included in ObamaCare. Then an amazing thing happened. Dean came very close to telling the truth. I was stunned. The truth ? Did Dean get DNC clearance for that ? I hope he doesn't get flagged as an Obama enemy. Here's Dean's answer:

“Here is why tort reform is not in the bill. When you go to pass a really enormous bill like that the more stuff you put in, the more enemies you make, right? And the reason why tort reform is not in the bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers in addition to everybody else they were taking on, and that is the plain and simple truth. Now, that’s the truth.”

Bingo. Tort reform is not included in ObamaCare because the Democrats don't want to take on the trial lawyers. The only thing Dean didn't reveal was WHY the Dems don't want to take on the trial lawyers. The reason is because the trial lawyers pay the Democrats not to take on the trial lawyers. The lawyers are big-time Democratic campaign donors, so the Dems are content to only demonize the insurance companies and the doctors in order to pass ObamaCare. Trial lawyers get a pass, even if it makes YOUR health care insurance more expensive.

Health care is a right, you know, and it's evil to profit from it. That's what the Dems keep telling us, anyway.
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Speaking of health care and flagging enemies, there is another right-wing nutjob spreading malicious myths about ObamaCare. No, not Palin. This time it's Representative Betty Markey, a Democrat from Colorado. Here's what Markey told a gathering of her constituents, from Coloradoan.com:

Some people, including Medicare recipients, will have to give up some current benefits to truly reform the nation's health-care system, Rep. Betsy Markey told a gathering of constituents in Fort Collins on Wednesday.

Markey has repeatedly said during the August congressional recess that Medicare spending needs to be reined in to help pay for reforming the broader health-care system.

"There's going to be some people who are going to have to give up some things, honestly, for all of this to work," Markey said at a Congress on Your Corner event at CSU. "But we have to do this because we're Americans."

Reduce Medicare benefits ? Uh, oh. That runs contrary to the official Dem health care narrative, which states that 47 million more people will be insured for less money than it costs now, and with absolutely no reductions in health care services or availability ever, ever, ever. Markey should be called down to Principal Obama's office real soon. Between Markey and Dean, a little too much inconvenient truth is leaking out. How's a President supposed to fundamentally transform America with such loose lips ? Did the weekly Democratic talking points memo get lost in the mail, or what ? Darn that government-run post office. The Dems should have used Federal Express instead.
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On the crazy right-wing extremist violence front, the windows were smashed out of the Denver Democratic Party headquarters, prompting Democratic officials to immediately cast blame on Obama health care opponents (the astroturf mob, aka, regular older American citizens). From the Colorado AP News:

Democratic leaders initially said that the window shattering was an act of political vandalism, possibly by opponents of health care reform…State Democratic Chairwoman Pat Waak continued to say that it was an act of vandalism prompted by the heated debate over President Barack Obama's health care reform…"I stand by my statement that I think there are people opposed to health care reform and there has been a lot of rhetoric that has prompted an atmosphere that I don't think is constructive," Waak said Wednesday. "It's such a polarizing issue. It shouldn't be."

It turns out that the vandalism was done by one Maurice Schwenkler. The problem is, Schwenkler isn't a right-winger. Schwenkler is a former Democratic campaigner and a gay rights transgender activist who opposed Obama's anti-gay rights positions. Schwenkler is a left-winger. Darn. The facts keep getting in the way of that liberal narrative about right-wing violence over health care townhall meetings. The official score is now……Left-wing acts of violence – 2, Right-wing acts of violence – 0.
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The lack of right-wing townhall violence doesn't stop liberals from whining about it, though. On wednesday night's Countdown With Keith Ubermoron on MSLSD, Olby named Congressman Wally Herger from California the Worst Person In The World when Herger called a man at a townhall meeting "a great American" after the man shouted out from the crowd that he was "a proud right-wing terrorist." The man is not a terrorist, of course. He's a veteran, and was openly mocking those on the left (like Olbermann) who describe townhall protesters using pejorative terms like "terrorists," a "mob," "racists," etc. Olbermann is either too stupid or too dishonest to acknowledge the difference. Btw, on the previous linked video, Olby also goes after Glenn Beck for tearing into Van Jones (an acknowledged communist and Obama's Green Jobs Czar). Olby said "Glenn Beck is crap," because Beck didn't divulge that Van Jones group, Color Of Change, is the group that is pressuring advertisers to drop Beck's show. In reality, it's Olbermann who is crap, because Beck has divulged that information, not to mention the fact that Beck went after Jones BEFORE Jones' group starting going after Beck, so Olby has his cause and effect reversed. Keith Olbermann IS the worst person in the world. Why anyone would watch Olbermann's dishonest crap show is the only thing that mystifies me (but I'd never try to pull his advertisers. That's crap too). In Olby's defense, of the three stories he brought up during his moronic Worst Person trilogy, he did get ONE factually correct, even though his snarky histrionics on that story were way overblown too. Seriously, liberal readers, do you watch that show ? If so, why ? All you are getting there is propaganda, half truths, and outright lies.

(Note to liberals – I'm not sticking up for Glenn Beck here. I'm sticking up for the facts. Note the difference. I thought Beck was wrong to call Obama a racist too, but he doesn't deserve to lose his show over it).

I mentioned in my last post that President Obama was supporting offshore oil drilling in America.

But only in SOUTH America, not here. Following are the details of that support, from the Wall Street Journal:

The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil's Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil's planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan.

The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a "preliminary commitment" letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount

So, we're lending Petrobras $2 billion or more. Sure, why not ? The good old USA is loaded ($11.6 trillion in debt) and our economy is doing so darn good (2.2 million jobs lost this year).

Here's a little information about Petrobras, the Brazilian state-run oil company. In 2008, Petrobras made an $18 billion profit. No wonder they need money from Uncle Sam. $18 billion is hardly enough to buy bread. Plus, poor Petrobras has been hit hard by the recession. Their profits are down 20% this year. For the first half of 2009, Petrobras has only made $7.4 billion in profit (link).

So, we're lending $2 billion or more to a foreign oil company that has made $25.4 billion in the last 18 months alone. I'm sure that makes sense somehow, but my little brain can't fathom it, even if big-time financier and left wing slush-funder George Soros can. Soros repositioned his holdings in Petrobras just days before the U.S. loan guarantees to Petrobras were announced. Soros sold 22 million shares of common stock and bought 5.8 million shares of preferred stock, which pay higher dividends. I'm sure Soros didn't have any inside information though. That would be, you know, illegal, and there's nothing at all shady about George Soros.

It would be nice if the USA had it's own offshore oil to invest in, wouldn't it ? We don't know exactly how much we have (lots), because nobody is looking for it. Offshore drilling has been banned off the East and West coasts for years, thanks to the environmentalists and other left wingers like Barack Obama.

I guess the new White House mantra is…….

Drill baby drill, but only in Brazil.

I sure hope we get a President someday who cares about America.

NORTH America, that is.

- One nice thing about Bill Clinton's presidency was that you could oppose his policies without being called a racist (mostly).

- People who think Bush went into Iraq to enrich Halliburton have no right to complain about the Birthers.

- When you go looking for "code words" for racism, aren't you just making stuff up ?

- When I talk about Obama's huge first year deficit ($1.8 trillion) on this blog, why do liberals always bring up Bush's deficits to excuse Obama's ? (Note to libs – By doing that, you aren't countering my argument. You are only making the argument that Obama is worse than Bush).

- Obama can offer health insurance to 30-45 million more people with health care reform, or he can reduce health care costs, but he can't do both at the same time.

- Obama's health care reform offers less choice, not more choice.

- Only Democrats think Rush Limbaugh is the head of the Republican party.

- Why is it that when liberals call conservatives racists nearly non-stop, nothing ever happens to those liberals, but when Glenn Beck calls Obama a racist one time, 20 advertisers are pressured into dropping their ads from Beck's show ?

- The only point being made by those people who are carrying guns outside events at which the President is speaking is that the gun carriers are oblivious morons.

- Is there any doubt at all that House Democrats are seeking the financial records of health insurance companies in order to demonize those companies ?

- Why is it okay for Congress to buy private jets with taxpayer dollars, but it's not okay for CEO's to fly private jets to Washington D.C. after being bailed out with taxpayer dollars ?

- Why would we want the federal government, an organization that is nearly $12 trillion in debt (and counting), to run our health care system, which represents 17% of our economy ?

- The "Obama is Hitler" signs must stop, because Obama is not like Hitler – he's much more like a combination of Saul Alinsky and P.T. Barnum. (Note to liberal media – that Obama-Hitler "I've Changed" sign you idiots at MSNBC, NBC, and CNN keep attributing to right wingers came from a Lyndon Larouche group, a communist group. Is even a tiny bit of journalistic integrity too much to ask ?)

- Speaking of Saul Alinsky, doesn't Obama's playbook seem awfully close to Alinsky's Rules For Radicals (pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it) ?

- MSNBC is such a biased organization that they actually edited out the fact that it was a black man who was carrying the AR-15 outside an Obama event, so MSNBC could peddle it's racist angle to the story.

- In the interesting political poll of the week, Gallup polling showed that conservatives outnumber liberals almost two to one when it comes to political ideology, yet Democrats have a sizeable lead over Republicans in party affiliation. (In other words, conservative doesn't always equate to Republican. I can identify with that).

- If you want to know why the health care public option was in, then it was out, then it was back in again….it's because up to 100 House Democrats said it better be back in again.

In the last nine months, our federal government has bailed out big business left and right. Wall Street, banks, insurance companies, car companies. The federal government serves as a backstop for big business. Big business also happens to be the ones with the deep pockets, lobbyists, and campaign cash to help get the politicians re-elected. It's a cozy little quid pro quo of the nation's power brokers. The elite taking care of their own. The government has also bailed itself out by sending huge chunks of cash to state governments via Obama's stimulus bill. Those government jobs were "saved," even as us schlubs in the private sector lost our jobs. It seems ALL the big boys in our country are "too big to fail," and the enormous bailout price tag is put on the national credit card for some future taxpayer schlubs to worry about. That's a sweet deal for the big boys in and out of government. Their risk is alleviated. Their past sins, which led to these dire financial straits in the first place, are absolved. The taxpayers serve as the sin-eaters and the pain-eaters. Btw, the federal employees health care plan is top-notch. Thank you very much, schlubs.

But with all this bailing out of the big boys, something critical has been forgotten.

70% of the jobs created in this country come from small business. How are we treating our small businesses, the ones who create the lion's share of employment opportunities ???? Let's take a look.

The liberal solution to every conceivable financial woe comes down to basically three words – "tax the rich." Then the liberals spew out inanities about how the top income tax rates used to be MUCH higher, like 70% or 90% (as if that's a good thing). What they don't tell you is that small businesses are scooped up along with the wealthy as liberals cast their tax nets, trolling for rich people. The reason for this is because 75% of small businesses are sub-chapter S corporations, who file their business taxes under the individual income tax code. When the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire, causing the top tax rate to increase by 4.6% to 39.6%, small businesses (the job creators) have to pay those increased taxes too. That leaves less money available to successful small businesses for investment, growth, wage increases for it's employees, and/or new job creation.

Reversing the Bush tax cuts is far from the only anti-small business measure being proposed. As part of the ObamaCare reform, the House Committee has propsed a surcharge tax for anyone making over $1 million per year, raising the top income tax rate to 45%. Last month, freshman Democrats in the House (who apparently have a lot more economic sense than many veteran Democrats in the House), sent a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) objecting to the measures, which they say will hurt small businesses. Here is a portion of that letter:

While the Ways and Means Committee states that the proposed surcharge in H.R. 3200 will only impact 4.1 percent of small businesses, we are concerned that this does not paint a complete picture. According to the Internal Revenue Service's 2002 Statistics of Income, 64 percent of households filing income tax forms with AGI above $250,000 filed as an S corporation or a partnership or filed a Schedule C sole proprietorship tax form. Further, of all small businesses, 75% are S-Corporations where the business income is passed through to the business owners' individual tax return, increasing the chances that it will be impacted by the proposed surcharge.

So, the Ways and Means Committees' 4.1% number of small businesses being affected is an outright lie. No surprise there. I'm only surprised when they don't lie. The letter goes on:

The proposed surcharge will also have a direct negative impact on manufacturers, another industry essential for our recovery. As manufacturers are capital intensive businesses, their taxable income is often higher (nearly 70 percent of the manufacturers that pay at the individual rate have an average taxable income of $570,000). Manufacturing machinery can cost of $1 million and many owners have to save for years to expand and buy new equipment. Yet those profits saved each year would be hit by the new surcharge, which could lead to reduced investment.

Especially in a recession, we need to make sure not to kill the goose that will lay the golden eggs of our recovery…Combined with state taxes, many successful small businesses — the very kind of business that should lead in creating new jobs and help us emerge from this recession — will be taxed at over 50 percent.

A 50% tax rate on job creators……Dumb-da-da-dumb-dumb. Small business can't thrive in such an environment.

The freshmen House Democrats go on to explain how, at a 50% tax rate, small businesses would also be at a huge disadvantage to the big corporations and multinationals, who would still be paying the lower 35% business tax rate. What an unbelievable coincidence. The big boys, after being bailed out and immunized from failure at the taxpayer's expense, and after all their lobbying and campaign contributions, get FAVORABLE TREATMENT FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT over the biggest job creators in the country, small business.

Btw, the letter also mentioned that $21 billion of the stimulus package funds are going to small businesses, the biggest job creators in the country. That comes out to about TWO PERCENT of the $787 billion Obama stimulus total. Do any of you STILL think that was a stimulus package ???? It wasn't. It was mostly just an extraordinarily large appropriations spending package, aka, pork. That's why it hasn't and won't work.

Let's also not forget that cap-and-trade is looming on the horizon, so Obama can "skyrocket" those energy costs for small businesses too. Then, if Card Check passes, the Big O can just drive a lot of small businesses out of business via unionization and it's unaffordable wages and mandates on business. Peachy.

Back to health care reform. The President is trying to sell the health care plan as being pro-small business, but a proposal in the House calls for employers with a total payroll above $250,000 to offer health insurance to their workers or face a surtax of as much as 8 percent. A Senate committee version would require all businesses, except those with fewer than 25 employees, to provide health coverage or pay a $750 fine per year for each worker. I've heard there will be a tax credit for businesses to provide health care (that doesn't help struggling businesses, which are many these days), but if these plans are pro-small business, I'd sure hate to see what anti-small business would look like.

That's why the business community, with the exception of those big and favored few who will prosper under Obama's plans (like Big Pharma or GE) is scared to death of Barack Obama, and is fighting back. I can't blame them. Anti-business craziness abounds.

I guess my only remaining question would be – is Obama trying to destroy this country on purpose, or is he just too stupid to know any better ?

Here is a release from the ACLU called 'Government Proposes Massive Shift In Online Privacy Policy':

Changes Would Pose Serious Threat To Americans’ Personal Information, Says ACLU

WASHINGTON – The American Civil Liberties Union submitted comments today to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) opposing its recent proposal to reverse current federal policy and allow the use of web tracking technologies, like cookies, on federal government websites. Cookies can be used to track an Internet user’s every click and are often linked across multiple websites; they frequently identify particular people.

Since 2000, it has been the policy of the federal government not to use such technology. But the OMB is now seeking to change that policy and is considering the use of cookies for tracking web visitors across multiple sessions and storing their unique preferences and surfing habits. Though this is a major shift in policy, the announcement of this program consists of only a single page from the federal register that contains almost no detail.

“This is a sea change in government privacy policy,” said Michael Macleod-Ball, Acting Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “Without explaining this reversal of policy, the OMB is seeking to allow the mass collection of personal information of every user of a federal government website. Until the OMB answers the multitude of questions surrounding this policy shift, we will continue to raise our strenuous objections.”

The use of cookies allows a website to differentiate between users and build a database of each user’s viewing habits and the information they share with the site. Since web surfers frequently share information like their name or email address (if they’ve signed up for a service) or search request terms, the use of cookies frequently allows a user’s identity and web surfing habits to be linked. In addition, websites can allow third parties, such as advertisers, to also place cookies on a user’s computer.

“Americans rely on the information from the federal government to research politics, medical issues and legal requirements. The OMB is now asking to retain the personal and identifiable information we leave behind,” said Christopher Calabrese, Counsel for the ACLU Technology and Liberty Project. “No American should have to sacrifice privacy or risk surveillance in order to access free government information. No policy change should be adopted without wide ranging debate including information on the restrictions and uses of cookies as well as impact on privacy.”

The Obama administration is attempting to implement this "sea change" in internet privacy policy with no debate, no transparency, and no explanation. To my knowledge, there is no Congressional authorization for this, and even if there was, it raises Constitutional issues.

Okay liberals, this is your call to arms. For years, you've been calling Bush a criminal and a unitary executive for his warrantless wiretapping of international phone calls from suspected terrorists and for his collecting phone records for the stated purpose of locating suspected terrorists. Now I've given you a clear example of Obama's intent to track Americans, not suspected terrorists, and invade their privacy via the internet, all without any accountability or oversight.

And while we're on the subject, what about Obama's national database of every American's medical records ? Isn't that an invasion of privacy as well ? I seem to remember something about doctor-patient confidentiality.

Should we frog march Obama out of the White House now ? If not, why not ?

Or are you now willing to say invading the privacy of terrorists is bad, but invading the privacy of Americans is okey-dokey, as long as Obama is doing it ?

Or will you just call me a racist ? (aka, The Reverend Response)

Enquiring minds want to know.

Why isn't anyone in the media the least bit interested in Barack "Transparency" Obama's personal records ? This guy's life is a more well-hidden secret than Batman's. If you want to know where the Birther movement came from, consider all the records Obama has kept away from the public. Here's a partial list:

Long form birth certificate (original birth certificate)
Passport files
Harvard Law School records
University of Chicago records of scholarly articles
Columbia University records and senior thesis
Occidental College records
Punahou School records, fifth grade thru high school
Noelani Elementary School records
Files and schedules for years as Illinois state senator
Client list while practicing law with Davis, Miner, Barnhill and Gallard law firm

In light of all this, is it unreasonable to ask "what's the big secret ?"

Don't take this to mean I believe in the Birther theory. I don't. There's not a shred of evidence that Obama was born anywhere other than Hawaii, and Hawaiin government officials have affirmed his birth. I do, however, wonder what all the secrecy is about. Obama could end all this Birther nonsense in a New York minute by releasing his original birth certificate, yet he doesn't do that. Instead, he spends large sums of money to hire lawyers to fight the Birthers in and out of court, time after time. Somebody please explain to me how that makes any sense at all if the man has nothing to hide.
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Speaking of transparency, or rather the lack thereof, what happened to Obama's pledge to hold the health care reform meetings in public on C-SPAN ? One more broken campaign promise, along with his broken pledge to keep the lobbyists and special interests out of his administration.
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Speaking of special interests, it seems the Obama administration has made a deal with the pharmaceutical companies to block any health care legislation that would allow the government to negotiate prices on prescription drugs. Democrats have been calling for this reform for years, and their President just shot them down. In return, Big Pharma is spending $150 million for ads in favor of Obama's health care reform. A special interest quid pro quo. The next time you hear the President or one of his minions at a townhall meeting rail against those evil special interests who are running health care, just laugh at them.
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Speaking of townhall meetings, I have to concede a point to my Democratic friends. I finally have witnessed a "manufactured" townhall meeting on health care reform.

It was the one Obama held in New Hampshire. That meeting was so different from all the rest that it was obviously staged, with planted questions and all.
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Speaking of New Hampshire, did you get a load of the protesting dipstick who was carrying a loaded gun in a holster outside Obama's townhall meeting ? To make matters worse, the guy was seen holding a sign that said "It's Time To Water The Tree Of Liberty." This is a reference to a quote from Thomas Jefferson, which states "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Let's add it up. Loaded gun + sign referring to bloodshed AT A PRESIDENTIAL EVENT !!! Any red flags being raised there ??? And to my knowledge, the Secret Service DIDN'T DO ANYTHING AT ALL about it.

It turns out the guy wasn't threatening the President, but hello, how fricking stupid can you be to carry a gun to where the President is going to be speaking ? Presidents get threats made against them every single day, and Obama is getting lots of threats, four times more than Bush got, according to the Secret Service. The Secret Service should have disarmed that moron and asked questions later.

I also have to come clean and admit that, after watching the gun-carrying tool being interviewed by Chris Matthews, it's apparent that the guy is a….a…..[cringe]…..LIBERTARIAN. Shoot. Er, I mean, darn. That's all for today. I'm going to take my Ron Paul book and go home.